The Destruction of the German Garrison in Lenin

A wounded partisan is treated in a field hospital belonging to the Shish detachment of the Molotov brigade. Among those pictured are Dr. Ivan Khudyakov, the brigade's physician (second from the right), and Fanya Lazebnik, a photographer and partisan nurse (left). The wounded partisan's name is Sergei. Pinsk, 1942-1944.

 Belorusian State Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War

From The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945

After the liquidation of the Lenin ghetto and the murder of its inhabitants on August 14, 1942, about 30 Jews remained alive in Lenin, as they continued to work directly for the Germans as tailors, shoemakers, builders, and photographers. At this time Lubov Rabinovich was ordered to train a group of Belorussian apprentices to take over his trade within one month.

A German garrison of 100 people and 30 local policemen was based in Lenin to protect the town. The Soviet “Kalinin” partisan unit planned an attack on the garrison, assisted by two neighboring units (in total about 150 people). The Jewish fighter Boris Ginsburg was the liaison between the partisan units. On September 12, 1942, the German garrison was suddenly attacked and the partisans inflicted heavy losses, apparently killing 3 German officers (including commandant Grossman), 14 soldiers and 13 policemen. The ghetto quarter was burned down. The remaining Jews fled to the woods with the partisans. Among them were the shoemaker “Leizer der Shuster” and his wife and daughter; the tailor Mordechai Kravetz; Fanya Lazebnik; the Slutzky family; and the Rabinovich family. In the unit named “Kotovsky,” within the Pinsk Soviet partisan formations, some of the escapees worked as tailors. Fanya Lazebnik joined the Molotov partisan unit and after recovering her camera during a second raid on Lenin also documented her life in the partisans. Fanya Lazebnik migrated to Canada after the war and also published a memoir of her experiences.

Leonid Smilovitsky and Martin Dean, from The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945 (Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, publication forthcoming). For more information about the encyclopedia project, please see the related link below.